Aligning supply chain considerations with sales, production, and forecasting is exactly the sort of problem that enterprise resource planning (ERP) was designed to solve. Coordinating departments and getting an overall view of business dynamics for smart supply chain decisions is devilishly hard without analytics and unified operations. So, as you might expect, the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition solution has an application for this sort of supply chain planning: SAP’s Integration Business Planning solution.
Integration Business Planning SAP is a planning tool that hooks into SAP’s cloud-based SAP S/4HANA Cloud for integrating the planning of supply chain considerations, sales, and operations. It combines advanced analytics, machine learning, and collaborative tools so businesses can make smarter, more agile decisions across the entire supply chain.
With the Integration Business Planning solution, businesses can:
- Automate shelf-life management, improve inventory management, and minimize obsolescence.
- Model future customer demand by efficiently managing supply and capacity considerations.
- Ensure efficient inventory allocation across the supply chain based on customer order priority.
- Improve stock deployment control, which can result in fewer stock-outs.
- Integrate planning outcomes with execution systems for reduced manual effort.
For businesses where supply chain considerations can make or break operations, the Integration Business Planning solution within SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud is an essential tool.
Integration Business Planning SAP Style
As often is the case with ERP functionality, the power of the Integration Business Planning solution comes from combining data from several parts of the organization and using this unified view for deeper coordination and planning visibility.
Integration Business Planning SAP style consists of several related components.
- Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP). The S&OP component of the solution helps an organization align demand, supply, and financial plans to create a balanced, synchronized plan for more consistent growth and profitability.
- Demand Planning. The demand planning component uses predictive analytics and machine learning for forecasting demand, improving forecast accuracy, and aligning production and inventory levels.
- Supply Planning. With the supply planning component, businesses can optimize supply chain processes to make sure that material resources and products are available at the right time, considering constraints such as production capacity, lead time, and inventory levels.
- Inventory Optimization. Using the inventory optimization component, businesses can maintain the right stock quantities and balance service levels, costs, and the capital tied up in inventory.
- Response and Supply Planning (RSP). The RSP component of the solution models various operational scenarios for better planning and responsiveness to changes in supply or demand. RSP can also help businesses adjust and mitigate disruptions in real time.
- Supply Chain Visibility. By integrating with the SAP Supply Chain Control Tower (SCCT), the Integration Business Planning solution gives an organization a centralized dashboard for monitoring its supply chain end-to-end. It provides real-time, comprehensive supply chain visibility.
- Collaboration. Integration Business Planning SAP connects internal and external stakeholders such as production, sales, suppliers, and customers for deeper communication and collaborative decision-making.
Driving Efficiency with the IBP
With the SAP Integration Business Planning solution, businesses get a more holistic view of supply chain and demand dynamics that can be used for streamlining processes and driving greater levels of efficiency.
Using the Integration Business Planning solution, an organization can optimize its entire supply network through the solution’s multi-level planning capabilities. It can model across diverse location geographies and complex bills of materials to ensure a streamlined and efficient flow of goods.
Businesses can enhance inventory and production processes by incorporating real-time demand sensing and automatic outlier correction for better demand planning.
Through enhanced visibility and collaboration, businesses also can improve operational processes by breaking down the silos between financial management, sales, production, warehousing and supply chain. This visibility and collaboration can help synchronize operations and align demand and supply plans so an organization can avoid costly inefficiencies such as stockouts, excess inventory, or transportation delays.
Integration Business Planning SAP makes a business more intelligent and responsive overall, able to adjust quickly as market conditions shift or supply chain dynamics evolve. The IBP and S/4HANA Public Cloud help make an organization an intelligent enterprise.
Learn More About the Power of the SAP GROW Journey
Integration Business Planning is just one of the many application suites within the SAP Business Suite platform. With GROW with SAP implementation journey, fast-growing small and medium-sized businesses get a complete backend software solution for handling all parts of business, from financial management to sales, production, logistics, and human resources.
The SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition platform is cloud-based and built on a flexible, extensible core so businesses can evolve and continue growing regardless of market trends, business model changes, or unforeseen technological innovations.
Discover all that SAP GROW has to offer your business. Learn more about SAP Public Cloud or its supply chain solutions by calling one of our experienced ERP consultants at (801) 642-0123 or by writing us at info@nbs-us.com.
